1. Field of the Invention
This invention pertains to animal husbandry generally, and more specifically to animal tethering systems useful for skijor and in many other diverse applications.
2. Description of the Related Art
Skijor is a sport where a dog pulls a person on skis over the snow. Most commonly, the person will wear a skijor belt generally about their mid-section that is coupled through a lead to a harness on the dog. Skijor provides excellent winter activity for a dog and person, and so has many participants. Competitions are regularly organized which permit many different dogs and skiers to compete on a trail.
Unfortunately, nearly everyone who has participated in skijor will fall. Depending upon various circumstances, such as but not limited to the size of the skier, the size of the dog, the hazards of the trail and the like, it may be important for a skier to rapidly disconnect from their dog. Yet, when disconnected, many dogs will continue down the trail, pulling whatever lead and couplers remain attached. Where metal fasteners are used to enable this rapid disconnect function, the dog will be pulling a metal component on the end of a fairly long lead. As will be understood, the coupling will bounce about the trail, occasionally picking up velocity substantial enough to injure other participants or spectators. This is clearly not acceptable, yet the skier must be provided with a way to disconnect. Consequently, it is important for a suitable skijor system to address both the needs and safety of the skier and the safety of other participants and spectators.
In addition to a harmless safety release, there are a number of other additional features that have been generally overlooked heretofore in the sport of skijor that would be highly desirable. Among these are the harnessing of a dog for travel to and from a trail and then for skijor. This would heretofore have typically required separate harnesses with the resulting confusion over which harness to use for what application. In addition, the changing of the harnesses required additional time, which added to the overall burden serving to discourage a person and dog from actively participating. Another overlooked feature is the ability to hold back a skijor competitor at the starting gate.